quad pain?

[pugz]

this is a question on behalf of my husband, who is training for a half marathon.  He's been training the last 3 months or so but just in the last couple of weeks is experiencing bad quad pain on his left leg.  He is stretching and got fitted for running shoes that fit well.  Do you think it's related to running hills (which he's doing since the course is hilly)?  Anything he can do to ease this pain? The race is in 3 weeks.

[Brit]

Has he tried toning down the hills and intensity for a week or two? That is the first thing that I would try if I were in that situation.

[pugz]

he just started the hills in the last 3 weeks, before that it was all flat trails, then he signed up for a half that is hilly so he started hill training

[Brit]

I suspect that the hills are the problem, especially since that is a factor that sounds like it changed recently. In theory he will be able to run a better race on a hilly course if he trains on hills, but not if he injures his quads by diving head first into hill training at the last minute.

[trigal]

May 12, 2013 12:28:11 GMT -5 Brit said:

I suspect that the hills are the problem, especially since that is a factor that sounds like it changed recently. In theory he will be able to run a better race on a hilly course if he trains on hills, but not if he injures his quads by diving head first into hill training at the last minute.

This would be my thought too, especially if he is now running a lot of hills.  He should probably only be doing specific hill training once a week.

[pugz]

I should have specified, he is only doing the hills on Sundays when he does his long run, every other day it's on a flat trail, he has to drive about 20 minutes to get to any hills.

[sunshinejoy]

I just completed a half that was hilly (yesterday) and my quads are screaming today.  The only time I experienced this during training was the once a week I ran hills.  So it sounds like his experience is pretty similar to mine.  My only advice is like others said...to lessen the intensity if he can.  Sorry I'm not more help!